Well, since you seem to have a superior grasp of macroeconomic and business theory, why don't you go ahead and lay it out for dumb little me? I'd be very interested to know why market size divorced from revenue generation potential is of any interest to businesses.

For one it's because you are trying to say a freak of nature is the standard MMO market. This is not true. WoW is a freak of nature that any other MMO has little to no chance of copying.

With how long the games take to develop and the rapid decline on SWTOR I doubt we will see another SW mmo ever. At the very least not in any sort of way we know mmo games now.

With more movies coming out, I think it's safe to say there will be another Star Wars MMO, or at least more attempts to capitalize on the franchise. If there weren't any more movies, then yeah, I'd say the future was up in the air.

I am yet to have someone explain to me how control over the Star Wars IP wouldn't extend to swtor...

The best reasoning I've heard is that EA has swtor until their contact is up for renewal, much like how SOE had to renew for SWG and couldn't come to a deal so they lost it.

It's possible that Disney has the movie rights and merchandising rights without having purchased the digital rights, or that Disney has acquired ownership of all rights, but the digital development rights are currently leased to EA.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 02:10 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Beavis

And I'm saying that the number of people in the market is irrelevant because the only metric that matters is money. If you're a firm and you can sell 6 people a product for a billion dollars a unit or sell a billion people a product for 5 dollars a unit, which would you rather sell? The obvious answer is the first product. Who cares how many people you sell to? You're trying to make money, not win a fucking popularity contest.

It depends on the production value per unit. If the 6 units cost 5 billion to build and then net me 6 billion in revenue then I only made a profit of 1 billion. If the billion units cost 5 cents a piece to make then your example heavily favors the billion units at 5 dollars a piece as it results in a 400% increase in profit.

Numbers are important

Money is important

They are not unconnected in an either or scenario.

If your potential market is small, then you have a smaller potential pool from which to draw income, this is especially important for luxuries such as video games. The larger your potential sales demographic, the more money you can potentially make. Stop trying to act like the money isn't connected to the market.

With more movies coming out, I think it's safe to say there will be another Star Wars MMO, or at least more attempts to capitalize on the franchise. If there weren't any more movies, then yeah, I'd say the future was up in the air.

SW games yes mmo highly unlikely. They take years to develop, cost several million to make and have a high risk of failure. They would have to start developing the game way before the movie to have any chance to cash in on the movie buzz. Without knowing exactly what timeline and storyline the movie will have they also won't be able to completely hitch a mmo to its buzz. How well or poorly the movie does will play a large part in what chance any game mmo or not has. If we have another ep 1 then a f2p phone app would flop if it was the love child of Return of the Jedi and A New Hope then the following game would have a much better shot.

Last edited by Tyrven; 2013-01-04 at 03:27 AM.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. -Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"

Sad indeed, I really loved the game but with all these F2P restrictions and watered down content and the so called "expansion" that looks like a content patch.. I just can't see myself enjoying the game anymore. Blame EA, then again they're a "business" and money comes first so..

What I don't get about EA is why they think they can make money by pissing off customers. Sure, their Call of Duty clones and sports franchises are their main cash cows, but what the hell? It's as if they otherwise don't give a shit who they offend and it drives away customers. If they acted more in the customer's favor and put customers rather than profits first, then their profits would also go up from the good relation they'd create with customers.

The F2P was way too excessive. There was a Tolstoy novel length list of restrictions on what free players cannot do and it was ridiculous. Getting rid of the "you can only have two characters" bs is the first step to bringing the game back. Allowing us use of mailboxes would also be nice.

Free players shouldn't so much be restricted as sub players should be rewarded. Give sub players a boost to xp and keep free players on regular xp gains, things like that.

F2P is just an extended trial mode.

If a video game developer removed tumors from players, they'd whine about nerfing their loss in weight and access to radiation powers. -Cracked.com

I'm playing the game and no... the game doesn't deserve all the hate. Hate decisions made by EA/ Bioware, agree/ disagree with other peoples opinion but the game is actually totally playable in all aspects and that it doesn't draw all the people from WoW is not a negative aspect to me.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 11:49 AM ----------

Reading... it's not that difficult.

The thing is, most people knew the budget involved in this game, so imagine everyone's surprise when upon release it felt very bare bones and minimal. Yes, the voice acting and animation for the quests was a great touch, but other than that, what was there? No amazing features or things that made you go "now that's cool". Did all the money get spent on the voice acting and animation? All I know is that I was expecting some pretty cool stuff because of the budget involved. There was literally nothing. When you put the budget and the game side by side, you don't see where it adds up. Also take into account it was not worth a monthly fee. If you like the game, hey that's great, but with the amount of people that left in droves, it's tough to look at your opinion and lean towards ot when so many people felt the game was not very good, hence why they left. The fact that this game went from a very successful launch to the company saying it would go F2P 6 months later is pretty ridiculous. Personally with the biggest budget ever combined with how many people bolted so fast to making it F2P so fast, IMO it's the biggest flop in MMO history. Shame. The potential was unlimited.

People give Swtor alot of hate, but it's actually a good game. It just can't exist with wow. Too many people wouldnt play it because they looked at it as WoW's direct competition, and wow has sucked up most of the people that are interested in mmo's for the most part. Swtor on release was alot of fun. They put alot of work into it, and it showed. Disney could take it over and create the most stunning, incredible game ever created, and it still wouldn't have a shot.

Exactly, does not matter what SW games is designed, the MMO haters would slash it apart even if it, fed them, bathed, n wiped their arse. They would just find something else to complain about. Its all doom n gloom because of people and their insatiable hunger for perfection which only exists in their minds as a hive of ideas pinched from a thousand borrowed thoughts somehows squashed together to give birth to the perfect MMO. Cmon this can never exist in reality. Its like the bible when god created the universe, Heavens the Earth, animals, people everything! and then said let their be light and `bang` he opened his eyes and must have thought....wow! YUP great thats exactly what I was thinking! no patches, or updates needed.

I do wonder now, does disney technically have the power to break ties with EA? after the contract for SWTOR's licensing ends?

Yes. They might legally be able to break the contract now...we don't know how it was written. If there was a clause for Lucas to stop it at any time, Disney now owns Lucas. For all the people trying to say Disney only owns this entity or that entity, it's all bullshit.

Exactly, does not matter what SW games is designed, the MMO haters would slash it apart even if it

It's probably a good idea to recognize that while there are some haters who bash everything, there are some legitimate grips people have with how BioWare/EA has handled things. Doesn't mean you have to feel upset by those things, but anyone who isn't blindly a hater or a lover should be able to at least understand the other side.

I don't really see them venturing into MMO territory because of development costs alone. They have been making a strong headway into consoles and I would expect it to be more likely that they deliver an Epic Mickey like Star Wars experience for the WiiU before they do an MMO.

And no, this doesn't mean it will be childish, but the gameplay element and use of hardware will be pretty good. It won't be laughable like the kinect star wars.

Picture this: 2 player mode has the person with the nunchuks as a jedi, with a lightsaber and all the wii goodness while the person with the newfangled wiiu remote is their droid companion who can hack things and fight in their own way while using a unique interface on the touchscreen.

Picture this: 2 player mode has the person with the nunchuks as a jedi, with a lightsaber and all the wii goodness while the person with the newfangled wiiu remote is their droid companion who can hack things and fight in their own way while using a unique interface on the touchscreen.

SW: TOR's nail in the coffin was its horrid F2P model. It had a chance at doing decent with a F2P model but im sorry, haveing to pay weekly to unlock raids, pvp, and hard modes. On top of paying to use purple items. Well EA can go F its self and the horse it road in on.

I am not of the business minded area but i have been thinking. With the purchase of Lucasarts Lock Stock and Barrel...... can they take a HUGE and i mean HUGE sledgehammer to EA and make them give up this game.

My dream is this as it goes. all the major players at the start have all gone..... maybe just maybe in my dream at least, they approach Disney about taking SWTOR away from EA and doing things their way the RIGHT way(minus a few things we all did not like full VO im aimed at you)

with the original teqam they can make the game to their designs and reinvent this AWESOME game and get all of us true believers the game we wanted.

I know this is just one huge pipe dream but im just wishin upon a star( lol pun intended) that they take this game from EA (dont know if possible) and bring us the Star Wars we love to play.

end of dream srry i just had to get this out im to inlove with this game and dont want to stop playing.

Exactly what is the "right" way? People who only like classical music wouldn´t be inclined to call disco "right" music either, so would very much like to know what it is Disney can do to correct anything EA might have done (considering its Bioware that made the game). Personally I like Sw:tor the way it is, and the only issue it has would be its end game considering the rest is so strung up on the story for each character.

---------- Post added 2013-01-04 at 05:15 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Rivyr

SW: TOR's nail in the coffin was its horrid F2P model. It had a chance at doing decent with a F2P model but im sorry, haveing to pay weekly to unlock raids, pvp, and hard modes. On top of paying to use purple items. Well EA can go F its self and the horse it road in on.

They allways said they added it as an option never full f2p.

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